A PHONE box outside a campsite near Nowra. If ever there was a place you would not have expected some serious negotiations to be had, on the next NRL major sponsor and digital media rights, this would be it. But, having lost mobile phone reception 20 minutes earlier, that was what Shane Mattiske, the NRL's interim chief executive, was left with; a telephone box, near a general store which was by this time closed, and a very loud cockatoo, who clearly did not appreciate the magnitude of the phone call.

Mattiske was about due for a break, being a few days after this year's NRL grand final. He had already sent his family to the campsite in Coolendel - a town about 40 minutes from Nowra - and left it as late as he could to leave his office.

On that Wednesday afternoon, three days after his first grand final as NRL boss, he spent the entire trip on his phone on the way down, and - even after his reception had died - knew he needed to find another, for a conference call with Commissioners John Grant and Ian Elliot, and two senior Telstra executives. ''I had an hour-long teleconference, with two of the most senior executives at Telstra, and two of our commissioners, to try and settle an in-principle agreement for the five-year, hundred-million plus deal,'' he says.

''Fortunately there weren't other people lining up to use the phone. It was a very serious conversation, obviously, with this sulphur-crested cockatoo in a cage in the background, squawking the whole time.''

Advertisement

He then found his family, in the dark, guided by a light on his smart phone. Many might have expected Mattiske to attack his role as interim chief executive in the same circumstances, in the dark and with a small light to guide him. But they would be proved wrong. What was completed from the day he was told by Grant and Elliot that he was the interim boss, replacing David Gallop, had been significant. The work has continued up until today, when Mattiske will again leave his office for a holiday.

It was a ''banner year'', says Mattiske, who recalls meeting with clubs in the Members Bar area of the SCG in 2008, as part of a strategy session, preparing for 2012. ''It's an extraordinary year in terms of the number of deals which we've had to work through,'' he says.

The five-year $1.025 billion broadcast deal with Channel Nine and Fox Sports was the largest and most important, but throw in the naming rights and digital media, the rebranding of the code, the recently completed collective bargaining agreements, and the almost completed radio rights and New Zealand broadcast rights, and it is clear this was no interim season.

''All of us have worked for four years, across the board, to be in a position where we can realise the true potential of the game,'' Mattiske says. ''Sitting here now, in December, you look back on that year, and the really exciting thing is those plans have worked. The 2012 season would have to be one of the most momentous seasons in the game's history in Australia.''

Planning is what Mattiske does well. Before he was an interim CEO, he was director of strategy and special projects. One of those special projects was to move the entire administration, as well as many of the other RLs, into the one building in Moore Park. That building, Rugby League Central, was opened on the same day the ARL Commission was formed.

Mattiske is in the same office now as the one he moved into that day. Even when he was made the interim boss in June, he said his ''focus'' was not on assuming the role on a permanent basis. He was also often quick to point out the work done by Gallop to put the administration into a strong footing, acknowledging the ''challenge'' of Gallop's departure. The two had worked together on the broadcast deal previously, which allowed Mattiske to take on the responsibility of those negotiations more seamlessly. He said the result was ''a benchmark deal in Australian sport''. The final days and hours of the deal were worth the exhaustion.

Mattiske said the final 15 per cent of negotiations occurred in the Sportsground meeting room during a marathon Monday night meeting, on the second floor of Rugby League Central. On that night in August, security wheeled a coffee machine up to the room, and the group ordered pizzas, as the bosses of the Nine Network (Jeff Browne) and Fox Sports (Patrick Delany), broke away to make phone calls.

''We'd worked a huge number of hours in the lead-up, to the point where we reached agreement that we were going to do a deal, and we needed to work through the night to be able to lock in the details, so it would be settled,'' Mattiske says.

To the point where the final 120-page heads of agreement document still features notations and addenda in pen. ''It's unlike any contract I've seen,'' he says.

It was unlike any night he'd experienced. ''It's difficult to comprehend how you can build a billion-dollar deal in the space of 16 hours,'' he says. ''But it was done.'' The deal was signed little more than an hour before the official announcement; it would be Mattiske's first press conference since taking the role, which he found the most challenging part of the process. ''Exhilarating, terrifying,'' Mattiske said of that press conference.

But the work has been relentless since, to the point where, Mattiske says, he and the network bosses are yet to meet to celebrate the deal. That will happen next month.

''I'm really pleased with what we've achieved,'' he says. ''It's extraordinary. We're entering into a new era in rugby league, and I think anyone in the game should be excited about that.''